What shape is your perspective? . . .

"People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole shaped"

-Author Unknown

As a photographer, perspective has an effect on my photography, it's how I see things. In life, perspective also has an effect on how I live, and how I see things. It helps to make an image tell a story, in life it simply helps to determine our happiness.

I don't think I'll hear any argument when I say life isn't always easy. In fact I would say a lot of times it's just plain hard and there are days when it feels impossible and unfair. But when I look back at some of those times, it almost always seems to be those struggles that have made life a little sweeter simply by putting everything else back in their proper positions. Those struggles help me to see the much bigger picture (not just through the keyhole), opens me up to the reality that I'm not alone, and helps me to have compassion for others because of them.  

It would seem that my ability to see, and how I relate those situations to the rest of my life, and how I live it depends a great deal on where I stand.

And just as in my photography, in life if I stand where I've always stood, nothing will ever look different.

I have learned that being grateful in all things is the key to perspective and that when my gratitude grows . . .  so does my joy.

So, yes I'm grateful for my struggles as hard as they may seem sometimes because they help me keep a handle on life's perspectives. Just as the thorn on a rose bush reminds me that in life there is something beautiful that comes from the pain of our trials.

"If you look at it the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."

- Frances Hodgson Burnett